


tea, with honey

by The_Eclectic_Bookworm



Category: Jackaby - William Ritter
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-03
Updated: 2018-11-03
Packaged: 2019-08-16 22:39:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16504121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Eclectic_Bookworm/pseuds/The_Eclectic_Bookworm
Summary: “Ghosts can be shadows, Miss Cavanaugh. Painful ones. Ghosts can be the sense that you’re stuck in a body, in a house, in a feeling, unable to get out of it. You seem haunted in every sense of the word. I should like to help you with that.”





	tea, with honey

Jenny’s house was small, cozy, and sensible. She liked to joke that it was an adequate reflection of her own moral character, as she herself was a small, cozy, sensible young woman. Only two of the three adjectives stuck; Jenny, nowhere near small, was tall and curvy and strikingly beautiful. She _dressed_ sensibly, however, which made her seem much less unassuming than she actually was. Certainly, she didn’t _look_ like the sort of person who had driven out three roommates in the last week alone, but she was, and she had, and her financial situation was continuing to become more and more dire.

“Really, Miss Cavanaugh, you’re a lovely lady,” the latest one was saying, a tiny redhead by the name of Anita, “but I don’t—that is—I didn’t get a _wink_ of sleep last night, the way you were carrying on.”

“I’m sorry?” said Jenny, surprised.

“You don’t—I—you were screaming,” managed Anita. “Quite a lot.”

Jenny thought back to the night before, but it felt like grasping at fog. “I must apologize,” she said politely, and meant it.

“No, I, I understand,” said Anita awkwardly. “The whole town knows that you’ve been through a whole bunch. And I’m _really_ sorry, I am, but I’m not ready to handle that sort of thing on a daily basis.”

“Of course,” said Jenny earnestly, trying not to think of the bills stacking up on her kitchen counter. Nice as it would be to find a roommate willing to help chip in for water and electricity, she didn’t at all want to manipulate an uncomfortable Anita into staying on. “I’m sure I’ll find someone who is a bit more suited to my…eccentricities.”

“I hope so,” said Anita, trying to smile. “You’re a nice person, Miss Cavanaugh.” With a stiff wave, she was out the door, leaving Jenny alone in the foyer.

Jenny shut the door, triple-bolted it, and leaned back against it with a small, wobbly sigh. She had had every possible iteration of this conversation. The potential roommate before Anita had been _much_ less kind in his description of Jenny’s nightmares. _Screaming and carrying on like a fucking ghost,_ he’d snapped. _It’s been three years, hasn’t it? Shouldn’t you have gotten over this shit by now?_

Everyone seemed to know about what Jenny had been through, and everyone seemed to have their own idea with regards to how she should be handling it. Jenny mostly just wanted to get a good night’s sleep, but even that seemed to come with its own price.

“Shouldn’t you have gotten over this shit by now?” she echoed the man’s words, smiling a too-wry smile and carding her fingers through her furiously curly hair. Her gloved hand snagged in her hair, and she winced, pulling it back. “Ow,” she whispered. “All right. Let’s get to work on a personal ad.”

Standing back up, she headed through the foyer and into the small kitchen, flipping the switch to bathe the room in a warm glow. The kitchen was Jenny’s favorite room in the house, and had been ever since she’d remodeled it. Howard had marveled at her comforting color choices; apple-green walls, easy-to-clean white counters, soft yellow cabinets. It felt safe, sitting down at that table to begin work on yet another personal advertisement.

Strange as it was, Jenny’s house really was the only place she felt safe. It was perhaps why she hadn’t gone out since her return from the hospital. She worked from home as a science tutor for hire—while it wasn’t exactly her old job as a chemistry professor, it did at least pay (some of) the bills. But other bills still remained, and so she once again put pen to paper, exhausted by the futility of the entire process. What were the odds that she would _ever_ find someone willing enough to put up with her?

 _Reasonably priced room for rent,_ she wrote. _Address: 426 Augur Lane. Two bedrooms, two bathrooms, pets welcome._

She hesitated, looking at the advertisement she had written so many times. After all the inadvertent frustrations that her trauma had caused others, it felt dishonest to send out an advertisement that didn’t at least mention them. But she didn’t like the idea of exposing her anxieties to everyone who might read the advertisement, and didn’t want to make herself vulnerable by doing so. After a good few minutes of contemplation, she added a single sentence:

_Must be all right with ghosts._

* * *

 

“ _Haunted,_ ” said Jackaby excitedly, brandishing the article at an exasperated Marlowe. “This is _perfect,_ Marlowe, absolutely _splendid!_ An absolutely incredible turn of events for a paranormal investigator such as myself.”

Marlowe sighed. “Mr. Jackaby,” he said. “The reason that this advertisement references _ghosts_ is because it was written by a Miss Jenny Cavanaugh. I assume you recognize the name?”

“Certainly,” said Jackaby. “She attached it to the advertisement.”

Marlowe looked genuinely surprised. “You haven’t heard?” he said. “I assumed her story would be right up your alley. You do have a fascination for the inexplicable.”

Jackaby grinned. “ _Is_ she a ghost?”

“Obviously not,” said Marlowe, annoyed. “Ghosts aren’t real. Miss Cavanaugh was victim to a brutal and unexplained attack in her home, one that should have killed her. She was found bleeding out in her bedroom, and a team of qualified and determined surgeons managed to properly save her life, but the emotional trauma of such an incident was understandably significant.”

Jackaby’s smile was fading. “Not a ghost, then,” he said somberly.

“Not in the slightest,” said Marlowe. “Half the calls in my precinct are from her neighborhood. She starts screaming every night at around one—her former roommates all say they think it’s nightmares.”

Jackaby looked at the advertisement again, running his thumb over _all right with ghosts._ “She sounds—”

“Troubled?”

“Brave,” said Jackaby. “Incredibly so.”

Marlowe raised an eyebrow. “You do have a strange way of looking at things,” was all he said, and then he went back to his paperwork.

* * *

 

Jenny received a call the day after the advertisement was placed. She was asleep when the gentleman called, so she wasn’t able to pick up the phone, but he left a brief, brusque voicemail that she listened to over breakfast. _“I’m terrible with machines, so I’ll make this quick,”_ he said. _“I’m interested in the offer you make. I like ghosts. I’ll be over at two in the afternoon.”_

“Great,” said Jenny to her eggs. “I’m attracting the antisocial ghost-fuckers.” She stabbed her bacon with a particular vengeance.

She had woken at eleven, which gave her plenty of time to shower, dry her hair, change into a nice dress that _didn’t_ scream Hello, I’m Traumatized And A Burden To My Neighbors, and obsessively tidy the house. Even though this man obviously wasn’t the sort she wanted in her house, the bills _did_ need paying, and if he liked it enough here there was a possibility of them being paid. Unethical, perhaps, but she was exhausted and a little desperate.

And, though she hated admitting it…quite solidly lonely.

The doorbell rang at ten to two. Jenny froze, tensing. She always hated when people showed up early. Some part of her always expected it to be…someone else.

“I’m here!” called a man’s voice. “Also, I brought, um, tea? Do ghosts drink tea? And some chocolates. For me, not for you.”

Despite herself, Jenny laughed. The sound surprised her. “Why bring up the chocolates if you’re planning to eat them yourself?” she called, grinning a little as she looked towards the triple-bolted door.

“Transparency is important between future roommates,” the man called back. “And I don’t want you seeing my chocolates and thinking you can snag any. This is _your_ house. You have food.”

Jenny pressed her fingers to her mouth, delighted for a reason she couldn’t quite express. “Hold on,” she called, and unlocked all the bolts on the door, opening it.

A rumpled gentleman with messy dark hair was standing on her doorstep, holding a small paper bag and a rather large bouquet of flowers. “The lady at the grocery store pressed them on me when I bought the chocolates,” he said. “And flowers—that’s a reasonable gift, isn’t it? I’m not attuned to social niceties.”

“Neither am I, to be honest,” said Jenny. “Please do come in.”

The man obliged. “Vampires need an invitation to come in, you know,” he said, stepping around her.

“Well, I don’t extend invitations to just anyone,” said Jenny. “Besides which, you were very clearly standing in the sunlight.” She stuck out her gloved hand. “Jenny Cavanaugh,” she said.

The man gave her a crooked smile, taking her hand. He didn’t comment on her gloves, which warmed her. Most people had a thousand questions that Jenny didn’t feel at all comfortable answering. “R. F. Jackaby,” he said. “You said _pets welcome,_ right?”

“I did,” said Jenny, surprised. “Do you have a pet?”

R. F. Jackaby shut the door behind him, taking care to triple-bolt it. “A duck,” he said. “Douglas. Certainly an unusual pet, but one that I hope you’ll grow to like.”

“Assuming you stay on,” said Jenny before she could stop herself, and then winced. “I’m sorry. That was rude. Most people tend to leave the next night.”

“I am not most people, Miss Cavanaugh,” said R. F. Jackaby simply, and handed her the flowers. “I hope you’re not allergic to anything in there,” he added, stepping past her. “Is your kitchen this way? I’d like to make your ghost some tea.”

“My…ghost?”

“You said you had a ghost, didn’t you?” called R. F. Jackaby from the kitchen.

 _Oh._ Jenny felt a twinge of sadness mixed in with the frustration. Why the hell did all the nice ones have to be _weird?_ “I don’t,” she said. “It was a somewhat misleading turn of phrase. I’m sorry about that.” She stepped into the kitchen after him to see that he had started in on making tea. “You don’t have to stay if you’re only here for the ghost—”

“Ghosts are tricky things,” said R. F. Jackaby, turning away from the kettle to give her a small, encouraging smile. “They come in many forms. I myself have quite a few ghosts of my own, and from what I’ve heard about you, I daresay you have much of the same.”

“What have you heard about me?” said Jenny coolly.

“That you’ve suffered,” said R. F. Jackaby, meeting her eyes unabashedly. “That you’re hurting. I know a thing or two about that.”

The honesty in his statement made Jenny feel uncomfortably exposed. “So when you say _ghosts—_ ”

“I don’t necessarily mean paranormal,” said R. F. Jackaby. “Ghosts can be shadows, Miss Cavanaugh. Painful ones. Ghosts can be the sense that you’re stuck in a body, in a house, in a feeling, unable to get out of it. You seem haunted in every sense of the word. I should like to help you with that.”

“And what makes you think that you can?” Jenny asked, more curious than anything.

“I don’t know,” said R. F. Jackaby, looking a little embarrassed. “I like helping people, when I can.”

The kettle went off. Jenny sat down at the kitchen table, watching this strange, sweet man pour tea. “What kind is it?” she asked.

“Chamomile,” said R. F. Jackaby. “Soothing. Do you have any honey?”

“I take my tea with sugar—”

“Honey’s better for the throat, Miss Cavanaugh,” said R. F. Jackaby, giving her a firm, pointed look. “Do you have any?”

There was something utterly intoxicating about not being treated like damaged goods. “Second cabinet to your left,” said Jenny. “Don’t break anything.”

R. F. Jackaby obliged, getting out the honey and a spoon to mix it into the mugs of tea. “Would you like to talk?” he asked as he stirred.

“About what?”

“I honestly don’t know,” said R. F. Jackaby. “It simply seemed polite to ask. I don’t like taking my tea in silence.”

Jenny laughed softly. “Um, I’m a stay-at-home chemistry tutor,” she said. “I write lessons for websites. I used to be a professor, but I had to leave that after—well. If you know I’m haunted, I’m sure you can deduce why I don’t like going out.”

“I certainly can,” said R. F. Jackaby proudly, “and not just due to my knowledge of your ghosts. I am a professional consulting detective.”

“Like Sherlock Holmes?”

“Not quite,” said R. F. Jackaby. “I am a _paranormal_ professional consulting detective.”

Jenny giggled, unable to help herself. R. F. Jackaby turned, looking a little hurt, and she hastily explained, “Oh, no, I’m not laughing at your chosen vocation! I just think it’s funny that _that’s_ why you picked up my advertisement! Not _pets welcome_ or _reasonably priced—”_

“—but because you mentioned ghosts!” R. F. Jackaby was grinning as well.

“Truly a masterstroke on my part,” said Jenny, giggling again.

“It works quite well for me too, as it happens,” said R. F. Jackaby thoughtfully, placing a mug of tea down in front of Jenny. She took a sip. It was delicious—warm and sweet—though she felt certain that part of this was because no one had made her tea in a _very_ long time. He sat down across from her with his own mug. “I’ve been told by many people that I need to make a few new friends. I have a tendency to be seen as a bit…odd.”

“You absolutely are that,” said Jenny immediately. At R. F. Jackaby’s surprised look, she elaborated, “I mean that in the _best_ way. Seriously. There isn’t a single person I’ve met who’s been able to put up with me for this long—”

“You have clearly been surrounding yourself with the wrong people,” said R. F. Jackaby, quiet but sure. The certainty in his voice was one of the most comforting things that Jenny had heard in a very, very long time.

* * *

 

R. F. Jackaby (who, Jenny learned, was happy to go by just Jackaby) moved his things in from the beaten-down car he had parked on the curb outside. They fit into all of three boxes, which he brought into the empty bedroom and spent most of the night arranging and rearranging, as cheerfully and certainly as though he knew he would be staying the night. He hummed as he worked, a tuneless, grating sound that made Jenny incredibly aware of his presence. She liked it. There was something about him and his whimsical honesty that made her feel just as safe as she did in her kitchen.

What she didn’t like was how _much_ she liked him. As much as she wanted to believe that he would be able to tolerate her nightmares, no one else _had._ Roommate after roommate had come in with a cheery smile, told her they would be able to stand a few nightmares, and left the next morning, indignant or shaken or a combination of both. Jackaby, Jenny felt, for all his kindness, would certainly be no exception.

It kept her up quite late that night. She couldn’t sleep. Every single night she had fallen asleep, she had woken to find her roommates all the way packed and waiting to say goodbye for good. She didn’t like the thought of Jackaby, Jackaby who had made her tea, Jackaby who had refused point-blank to share his chocolates, leaving her with that same twisted expression on his face.

At about midnight, she resolved herself to the fact that she wasn’t going to be getting any sleep, and got up, heading out of her room and down the stairs. The light in the kitchen was on; Jackaby must have forgotten to switch it off.

Jackaby hadn’t. Jackaby was sitting at the kitchen table, looking thoroughly exhausted and a little ashamed. “Miss Cavanaugh,” he said wearily, looking up at her as she entered. “I’m afraid I’m not at my best, at this juncture.”

Jenny blinked. “And why on earth would that bother me?” she said, genuinely confused.

Jackaby shrugged. It was a strange, jerky motion for a man who had, up until now, carried himself with such unapologetic confidence. “I’m damaged goods,” he said. “I hide it much better in the sunlight.”

“You sound quite melodramatic,” said Jenny, smiling slightly. “I think we’ll get on splendidly. Up with you.”

“Miss Cavanaugh—”

“It’s  _late,_ ” said Jenny. “Just because I can’t sleep doesn’t mean you get to keep yourself up as well. I _won’t_ take no for an answer.”

Jackaby gave her a small, weary smile, and stood up. “There,” he said. “I’ll head up to bed. Happy?”

“Very,” said Jenny, and shepherded him out of the kitchen and up the stairs, hurrying past him at the landing to open the door to his bedroom. “Get some sleep,” she said. “Or try to. Let’s hope my screaming doesn’t wake you up.”

“I can assure you, Miss Cavanaugh, that I am a _very_ heavy sleeper,” said Jackaby with a yawn. He rubbed at his eyes, then took another long look at her, giving her an encouraging little grin. “Goodnight, then,” he said.

“Goodnight,” Jenny agreed, and found herself smiling a little too as he shut the door. She wavered in front of it for another second, and then she headed to her own bedroom.

* * *

 

Jenny never remembered her dreams, but she always woke up with the taste of blood in her mouth and a phantom pain in the long, ripping scar across her stomach. She sat up, letting out a sobbing breath, and ran her hands through her hair, sniffling. “Okay,” she whispered. “Okay. You’re—okay. You’re alive, remember?” Her throat felt hoarse; she knew she must have been screaming. Tonight felt like it had been one of the worse ones.

It took her a good fifteen minutes to even get out of bed. She found a pair of jeans and an old long-sleeved t-shirt, tied her hair up into a sloppy bun, put on her gloves, and headed downstairs.

Jenny didn’t do well with anything outside of fabric coming in direct contact with her hands. She wasn’t sure why. It was some leftover remnant of something from that traumatic incident she didn’t (couldn’t) let herself remember, probably, and she didn’t question it. Gloves helped make the contact seem less scary, and it made gripping the banister as she headed down the stairs a whole lot easier. The light in the kitchen was once again on, and she was horribly afraid of facing Jackaby now that he knew what her nightmares sounded like.

Jackaby was sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of tea. Two cups, actually, both steaming hot. “That sounded painful, up there,” he said, and smiled a little. “I’ve made you more chamomile tea, with honey, for your throat. Should help.”

“You’re not leaving?” said Jenny. The words came out small and almost plaintive.

“Certainly not,” said Jackaby, sounding positively affronted. “That bedroom has an excellent view of town, you’re letting me keep my pet duck, and you’re a perfectly adequate companion. I don’t think I could ask for more in a living situation.”

“Oh,” said Jenny. Then, “I haven’t—um—most people don’t stay this long.”

“I reiterate: you have been around the wrong people.” Jackaby nudged the second cup towards Jenny. “Have some tea.”

Jenny sat down at the table and took a long sip. It _did_ help. The steady ache in her throat was dulled by the hot, sweet liquid. She cleared her throat, then coughed. “It’s strange,” she said softly. “Just a little bit of warmth and it doesn’t hurt quite as much.”

“A rather pretty metaphor you’ve made there, Miss Cavanaugh,” said Jackaby, smiling slightly, and took a sip of his own tea.


End file.
